1. Field of the Disclosure
The present application disclosure relates to the field of telecommunications generally. In particular this application relates to service convergence of various personal telecommunications devices and services.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telecommunications has exploded in recent history. Where once a single telephone line operated for a number of houses, an individual or household is now likely to have multiple Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) lines—such as home and office lines, long distance services, at least one mobile phone, and broadband internet services, just to name a few. The telecom deregulation that started in the mid 1990s brought about the emergence of a large number of Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLEC), Inter-exchange Carriers (IXC), cable multi-service providers (MSO), and mobile virtual network operators (MVNO). The market disruption caused by deregulation created many players that serve different aspects of the telecommunication services value chain. For instance, over the same copper local access line to the home, the basic phone service, domestic long distance service, international long distance service, dial up and broadband Internet service, Voice-over-IP (VoIP) service, games, and multimedia content can be obtained from different application service providers.
Enabled by ubiquitous broadband Internet access, telephony services can now be integrated with Internet technologies to create multimedia communications services. Through the Internet, network and location dependent communication services such as landline phone and mobile cellular can now be accessed from a multitude of devices and over a plethora of access technologies including ADSL, packet cable, Wi-Fi, GPRS, and 3G mobile services. It is now common for a user to have multiple IP-connected user devices that can be used to access the communications services offered by different service providers.
Further, broadband Internet users can now access an ever increasing and diverse number of multimedia web services. In addition to the traditional landline and wireless cellular services, broadband Internet also enables new customer choices for unbundled services, such as VoIP and one-number follow-me service.
This increase in technology, telecommunications options, and competitors has created an increasingly complex array of services. Many companies have begun to compete by bundling some of these services. For example, many consumers may now receive their cable television services, local phone services, and broadband internet access from one source. However there remains a large number of disparate services, and users will often pick and choose individual services that they prefer or believe offers the most value.
Existing user communications services such as cellular, landline PSTN, carrier VoIP, and PC-to-PC VoIP are separate services that are accessed using different devices such as a mobile phone, plain-old-telephone, IP phone, and computer, respectively. These services are typically offered by different service providers and bounded to specific serving areas or physical locations. The user may also have other communications capable devices such as the home desktop PC, office laptop, and Portable Digital Assistant (PDA) which can also be used for communications but may not be usable since they are not linked to the user's various communication services or devices.
In addition, a user is generally provided with a different user identity for each of the user's communications services and devices. For online services, a user may have multiple service identities tied to VoIP, instant messenger applications, and chat applications. For offline services, users may be identified by telephone number, cell phone number, or the like. Due to the limitations of existing circuit-switched communications technologies, telephony systems today provide a concept of service identity which is tied to the device to which the provider provides service, rather than an identity that is tied to the user. Service providers employing next generation packet based technologies allow services to be less dependent on the access network and the user device. Similar limitations exist in the online portal services domain where online applications such as instant messenger and VoIP services have different service identities that are not linked with the user's other PSTN services. While portal VoIP services allow simple means to connect users within the online service community, the user has to use different devices and services such as the mobile phone when interacting with users outside of the online community.